Stadtluft Macht Frei (City Air Makes One Free)
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: Jane wanders the city at night. Early season 1.


**Summary** : Jane wanders the city at night. Early season 1.

 **A/N** : Thank you to Ronald C. Rosbottom and his fantastic book about the German Occupation, _When Paris Went Dark_ , which I have been thoroughly enjoying reading these past few days. It both inspired this fic and afforded me a title in yet another fantastic foreign phrase that the English language cannot do justice to. (I'm a collector of those.) Please enjoy.

x x x

Despite all her plans and all her preparations, Jane is still nervous the first time she sneaks out of her safe house on her own. She knows she's breaking the rules—Weller has been very clear, on multiple occasions, that she's to go nowhere without her detail accompanying her, _especially_ not at night—and yet the disciplinary consequences of her actions aren't what fuels her anxiety when she creeps out of her own home that first time. She isn't scared of being caught, per se.

But she _is_ scared of what being caught will mean: having her detail upped, and made aware of her deceptive tendencies; never being allowed on her own again, because the first time she gets caught will be the last; forever being stuck in that horrid safe house, sleepless and trapped, without a distraction from her thoughts.

For the past two weeks, she has been spending every night in that safe house. Night after night after night all but locked in that virtually abandoned building. And she is absolutely sick of it.

And while she _does_ have days out—days at the office and day in the field and days at the gym and days exploring the city with her security detail discreetly tailing her from a few paces back—she hasn't yet had any _nights_ out. She hasn't gone anywhere at night, or done anything at night, except sit in her apartment alone and wait until it's time to go to bed. She knows she could venture out, if she wanted to. She could head to a bar or go for a walk or go out to eat.

But her security detail would follow her to all those places, would keep an eye at her at all times as she did all those things, and while she doesn't mind their presence so much during the day, it's different at night. In the darkness of the evening, after many have gone to bed but many are still awake, she doesn't want a pair of Bureau-issued shadows following her around.

She doesn't want to feel _anything_ or _anyone_ following her around. She just wants to disappear. She wants to be swallowed up into the city, just another nameless inhabitant, no different nor any more special than any of the others.

It had scared her at first, the first time she had felt it: the anonymity consuming her. It had happened on a late October afternoon a few weeks ago. The sun had set much faster than she'd anticipated, and suddenly she'd found herself out in the city, at night, among all these people. She had suddenly sensed herself among them, as they had rushed from here to there, or shouted at their friends, or clung to their spouses; she had sensed herself and she had known—as she always does when she's around other people—that she was fundamentally different from them all.

But she had also felt something else.

She had felt _the same_.

She had felt herself being swallowed up into the mass of people around her—the shoppers and the tourists and the resident New Yorkers—as if she were truly one of them, and she had relished in it. She had heard the taxis honk and screech, their drivers cursing and their doors slamming. She had looked up and saw the night sky, dark perhaps, but illuminated by all the lights around. She had felt like, for the first time, one small piece of the huge city. She had felt integral to it—but unnecessary, too. And that was the thrill.

Because who, out of all these hundreds, thousands, millions, of people around her, _who_ would notice if she disappeared? If she left and never came back? The city wouldn't know. The populous wouldn't even bat an eye.

Her and her tattoos and her fake name and her mysterious skills would mean nothing to them. They wouldn't miss her. They wouldn't care. They wouldn't mourn.

The thoughts had made her head spin that October night, as she realized them, and she had thought at the time that she was losing herself again, disappearing into nothingness, disappearing back into that horrid bag that she'd come out of only days before. And so then, it had been good, in that instinctual moment of fear, to be able to look over her shoulder and see her detail there behind her, their presence affirming hers, solidifying hers. Giving meaning to hers.

But the comfort their presence initially brought soon fled, and quickly she grew to feel only impatience when she heard their footsteps following behind hers, be it at night or during the day. She began to realize that she _did_ want to lose herself, and she wanted to do it— _had_ to do it—in a way she wasn't able to within the walls of the FBI; in a way she couldn't, crushed under the weight of her prisoner's hideaway. She wanted to disappear completely from the world, wanted to disappear _into_ the world, just for a little while. And she wanted to do it without anyone knowing she had. She wanted a secret—just one secret—that was all for her.

So she studied. She watched her detail as they watched her, and after a few days, she had their patterns down. She knew who got sleepy when, who checked their phone more often, who got up to do the middle-of-the-night coffee run, and when, and how long they took.

She found other ways into and out of her safe house besides the front door that they watched, and she quickly took advantage of the fact that her bathroom window did not contain a screen. She was glad she was slim and small; even someone with a couple more inches on their waist wouldn't be able to fit through the narrow opening like she could.

She began to watch TV more regularly and more loudly—or at least, she turned it on more regularly and more loudly. If she made even the smallest noise getting into or out of her apartment, she wanted it covered. She _needed_ to have everything covered, or else she was toast.

And so when that first night finally fell… She had made sure she was prepared. Nervous, but prepared.

It goes well. She climbs out of her bathroom window, slips between the outer walls of her place and her neighbor's, and manages to step out into the alley behind both houses undetected. Wearing black helps. Knowing exactly where she wants to go helps, too. Even _if_ her detail is looking for her, it would be a somewhat confused, fully tattooed her in a white tank top. But she's wearing all black tonight, and she's covered herself up, and she's taking care to walk with purpose, with a destination in mind.

Over the past few weeks, she's studied the New Yorkers around her: how they move, how they act, how they interact, how they look—or don't look—at the world around them. It hadn't taken her long to find a way to be one; to embody one. It was oddly easy, actually. In fact, she's been noticing recently that it isn't very hard for her to pretend to be someone she's not.

She doesn't know how to feel about this skill. What does it mean that she can become others easily but still can't find herself?

The question reverberates in her own head as she walks quickly from her safe house, taking sharp turns and hurrying down the long blocks. It's been swimming around her head for weeks now, poisoning her thoughts, her actions, even her plans for tonight—because her first destination for her midnight escapade is to go back to Times Square.

She knows it might be nothing. She might feel nothing, might remember nothing. But if there's one place she might be able to find herself, it's there.

It's a long trip. She takes two different lines on the subway to get there, and then walks a few block, and then… She's there.

Though she now knows it's a busy tourist attraction, that it's its own center of town within the center of town, she's still bowled over by the sheer volume of all that it contains. All the lights, the yelling, the _people._ People _everywhere._ She can't get over it. It is absolutely nothing like the empty wasteland she saw that first night, and she is awe of the life that it contains now. She spends nearly two hours there, just wandering around, watching, existing, _being a part of it all_.

And when she comes back, slipping back through the buildings, through the open bathroom window, the first thing she does is look herself in the mirror. Does she look any different, after her excursion, her assimilation, into civilization? she wonders, peering at herself in the glass. Did she look like one of them?

With her tattoos covered under her jacket and pants, and her scarf wrapped tightly around the bird on her neck, she can't help but think that _yes,_ she _does_ look like one of them. Maybe she even _is_ one of them.

That's all it takes. The thrill, the exhilaration, the wholeness that came with _belonging,_ for just a night, to the wider world _…_ And she's hooked. Addicted. Consumed.

She goes out almost every night after that first time, slowly exploring each borough, each neighborhood the city has to offer. It seems every street contains a different feeling, a different set of people, a different code of conduct or way of being. She loves it. There are so many places to be, to call home. And each and every one of them is better than her safe house.

Now, three weeks later, she doesn't feel nervous anymore when she gears up to leave her safe house in the middle of the night. She hasn't gotten caught yet, and she doubts she will any time soon. She's got her moves down to a science, her routes memorized. She knows her security detail's habits as well as she does her own, and she exploits them to the fullest.

So when she sneaks out once again, taking an excursion into the East Village, she doesn't expect anything to go wrong. She doesn't expect to run across anyone she knows, let alone be caught, because who out of her few acquaintances at the Bureau would be out wandering around the Village at one in the morning? She knows that none of them live there; she's checked.

But he's there nonetheless.

She doesn't even recognize him at first. It's odd to see him outside of work, outside of the backdrop of the FBI, outside of his close-knit entourage of Reade and Zapata and Patterson that are forever surrounding him, and she actually doesn't even notice him when her eyes pass over him as she heads up the subway stairs. He's just another New Yorker loitering on the street, waiting for someone or something. Despite all the rushing around in the city, Jane has noticed, all anyone really does in this city is wait.

"Nice night, huh?" he asks as she passes by, stepping up onto the sidewalk from the stairs to ascend fully to street level.

She's about to ignore him—she's learned quickly to ignore the men that talk to her on the streets, especially at night—but then she recognizes his voice, and she immediately feels her stomach drop. And despite the biting chill in the air, she stops feeling the cold of the night, and simply starts feeling numb all over.

 _How_ is the first thought that enters her mind as she turns to face him. _How_ does he know? _How_ is he here? _How_ has he found her?

Has he been watching me all night? she wonders, trying and failing to stamp down the thrill of exhilaration that goes through her at such a thought. But it dissipates quickly as the consequences start piling up in her mind: How long has he been tailing her like this? Days? Weeks? Has he known since the very beginning? Has everyone known, and she's only been fooling herself?

"Are you here to march me back home?"

She does her best to sound flippant, uncaring, rebellious—but she doubts it works. Because she does care. And despite her rebellious streak, no little nightly thrill is worth losing her daily responsibilities at the Bureau. It's what she lives for; it's all she has. She watches Weller, holding her breath as she waits for his answer. Is it possible that he'll fire her over this?

All the planning you did, she thinks angrily to herself, her heart souring as much as her stomach. And you never once thought about planning for the worst.

"I'm here to ask you what you think you're doing out here. At—" He checks his watch. "—one-twenty-three AM on a Thursday."

"I'm taking a walk," she replies, doing her best to sound calm, normal. And before she can help herself, she adds, "And technically it's Friday now, not Thursday."

He frowns at this, crossing his arms over his chest, and she immediately tries to think of ways to backpedal. A pissed-off Weller is not the Weller she wants to be dealing with at this juncture. She tries to play on his sympathy; that usually works.

"I mean, I… I just needed to get away from the safe house. I needed some air."

"In the middle of the city. At night. Without telling your detail."

"I…" What's there to say? "Yes," she answers lamely, looking away from his glare like a guilty child.

"You know they're assigned to you for a reason, right? They're not following you around as punishment, Jane, or because we don't trust you—"

"I know, I know; it's their job," she rattles off, feeling the guilt settle on her now. Is it possible _they_ will get fired over this? She feels her stomach twist at the thought. Surely Weller wouldn't be that cruel. But is it even up to him? she wonders, thinking of Mayfair.

"They're there to keep you safe, Jane. That's the _only_ reason. They're there to help you if something bad should happen; they're there to _stop_ bad things from happening. Don't treat them like they're babysitters keeping you from living your life."

"Yeah, well, it's kind of hard to figure out how to live your life when you've got shadows following you around everywhere, watching your every move, keeping tabs on your whereabouts and taking notes on your mental state," she snaps back, glaring at him. "It isn't much of a life when every second of it is being recorded in FBI files to be approved or disapproved at a later date."

He looks away at that, his eyes dropping from the fire in hers, and she feels an immediate stab of regret. She hadn't meant _him._ She doesn't mind _his_ company, not really.

"Look, Jane…" He puts his hands in his pockets, and lifts his head, but when his eyes rise, it's not to meet hers. He's watching something over her shoulder, and she knows it must be her detail, waiting at an appropriate distance away for his signal. They'll ferry her back home, put the house under lock and key, and never let her out of their sight again.

She would be furious if she didn't already know that she deserves it. So she waits, loitering beside him, for his decision. Either he can lecture her a little longer or he can send her home, and at this point, even she isn't sure what she'd prefer.

But the seconds pass, and then the minutes, and still he doesn't say anything, doesn't do anything. He just stares at a spot over her shoulder, and as time goes on, she can't help but wonder if he's actually looking at her security detail or just trying to not look at _her_.

They don't have the easiest of relationships, she knows. It's awkward between them, with the whole Taylor-not Taylor debate raging, and though she'd once been able to say with certainty that he wants her to be Taylor, she isn't so sure any more. And that uncertainty isn't making things any easier. Sometimes she catches him looking at her, watching her, and she thinks maybe he's trying to see something else than the childhood friend he lost.

Or maybe she's just reading too much into it.

"I know this isn't the first time that you've snuck out," he finally says, breaking the silence and making her heart beat a little faster as he does so. So he's known, she thinks. But for how long? "I know it's not the second or the third or even the fifth, or even the tenth…" He trails off, his eyes finally lowering to meet hers. She's surprised with what she sees there. It's less pity and more… understanding?

Forcing herself to swallow the many questions ready to jump out from between her lips, she closes her eyes momentarily. Just ask one, she thinks. He doesn't have the patience, especially not now. Just ask the one that matters.

"Why?" She opens her eyes, finding his staring down at her in mild confusion. "Why haven't you done anything yet—sent my detail after me or stopped me or ordered them bring me back home?" He's a stickler for the rules, she knows. So why let her shirk them like they mean nothing? "If you've known all this time, why have you let me keep going out?"

"Because," he says, and for a moment he's quiet, and she thinks that's all he's going to say. But then he adds, looking at her a little more intently now, "I know what it's like not to feel at home in your own home. To need an escape. To need time to be alone, to be out on your own, to just be…"

He trails off, but she finishes for him: "No one."

He nods, smiling a little, and she feels a small spark of pride that she guessed right. Oftentimes, he's so unreadable that she can't even begin to guess what's going on in his head. But now, she's thinking, maybe his head is a lot like hers. If he understands her midnight wanderings, surely they can't be all that different…

"Thank you," she says, meaning it. "I really appreciate you not turning me in these past few weeks. And for—understanding what it's like."

He bobs his head in silent acknowledgment. "I've let you go these past few weeks because you've been careful. You've been looking out for yourself, and you haven't done anything stupid—well, besides the obvious."

She frowns, but he continues without noticing.

"You just have to remember to be careful when you're out, okay, no matter how safe you feel," he reminds her. "I know you can take care of yourself," he adds quickly, seeing her mouth open in protest, "but I also know what goes on in this city, more than you do. You'd be surprised how quickly you can be caught off-guard, overpowered…" There's a frown deepening his face as he speaks, darker than his usual one. His eyes are furtive as they dart to hers, away, over her shoulder, out across the street.

Is he always watching for danger? she wonders. Or is it just because I'm here?

"All I want is for you to be careful," he finishes finally, eyes falling again as he tucks his hands into his pockets. His breath is visible, a white-gray cloud puffing between them when he exhales. She shivers as if in response; in the fear of being caught, she'd stopped feeling the cold. Now it comes back with a vengeance, the wind slicing through her. Usually she's moving at night, and so the cold hardly gets to her. But she's been standing here with him for far too long.

He notices her trembling, and smiles a little, as if in sympathy. He tips his head towards a couple waiting on the corner of the next block. She can't see them, not from this far away, but she knows they must be her security detail. "They can drive you home, if you want. It'll be warm in the SUV," he adds solicitously, and she smiles a little. It's odd for him to be so caring—not out of character, exactly, but just odd, at this moment. When he should be cursing her out, or at the very least, giving her a severe reprimand.

She wonders again why he's letting her off so easy. But it doesn't stop her from pushing her luck.

"I don't mind the cold," she tells him, adjusting her scarf for maximum warmth in the face of the wind. "And I think I'd rather walk back than take the car, anyway."

"Yeah, I thought as much." He doesn't smile—perhaps that would seem too encouraging—but she can see his eyes brighten a bit. It makes her feel strangely prideful, to have entertained him, even for a moment. She gets the feeling that he doesn't often enjoy himself.

"Well…" He takes a step back from her, tacitly inviting her to do the same.

This is where they will part ways, she knows. He will go back to his home, and she will go back to hers. They'll see each other tomorrow at work, and she knows already that they will not speak of this. It will not be pushed under the rug so much as… quietly resolved. She will know the rules now, for he has made sure of it.

While he takes another step back, she stays still, standing tall amidst the cold, the dark, the towering buildings around them. She does her best not to lean towards him as he retreats. And if she does happen to, surely it's only the wind pushing at her back.

"Jane, I'll see you—"

"Would you like to walk me back?"

She doesn't know where the words come from. She just knows that they're a product of instinct—watching him step away from her only served to make her want to step closer to him—and her instinct has not failed her thus far. It's been the only thing keeping her alive, in fact.

She watches his surprise at her request as it widens his eyes for a moment, even parts his lips. For a second, she wonders if it was too bold, asking him that. The next second, she doesn't care. If it was too bold, he'll say no, and that'll be that. But if not…

"If I walk you back, do you promise to stay in your safe house the rest of the night? No sneaking back out, not even if you're sure you can get away with it?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," she replies, a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth as she says it. Patterson had taught her that saying the other week; she's been looking for an opportunity to use it.

Maybe he knows this, for he laughs a little at the idiom. Or maybe she's just entertained him again. Twice in one night—must be a record. "All right, then." He dips his head in approval. "Good enough for me."

The next step he takes is towards her, and then the next brings him right up next to her. She expects him to start leading the way—he always does, after all—but he spreads an arm out, gesturing for her to lead.

She ducks her head as she steps forward, in order to hide her smile at his gesture. They both know he knows the way back to her safe house. He probably has every street in this city memorized, every twist and turn imprinted into his brain. He could get back to her place from anywhere. But the mere fact that he's giving her a chance to showcase her knowledge, her skills, her ability…

It's why she likes him so much, she realizes. Why she respects him: Because he's always giving people a chance to prove themselves. Even—or perhaps especially—when they might not deserve it.

"This way," she calls, waving him forward as she starts off. She doesn't bother looking back as she makes her way forward, for she can hear his footsteps following behind hers, echoing hers. For once, her shadow turns out to be a comfort instead of a burden.

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 **A/N** : Reviews would be lovely if you have some thoughts on the story that you would like to share! I know this was just a little thing, but I had a bunch of fun writing it tonight! Thank you for reading. :)


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